Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #22 (First Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #22
Justice League #43, Batman #45, The Terrifics #3, Batman and the Signal #3, Hit-Girl #3, Justice League of America #29, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


Comic Book Reviews!

Justice League #43
By Priest and Woods

Last issue ended with Deathstork murdering The Fan, the guy who knew all of the Justice League's secrets. Superman and Batman both scolded Deathstork for murdering a guy in cold blood but Deathstork defended himself by saying, "You all know...." That was as far as he got before Batman was all, "You're right! Let's talk about something else now, maybe something that isn't also how we're not going to arrest you. I mean, you had a very convincing argument when you asked, 'Did you actually see me kill him?' after which, I'm assuming, you winked."

See, Deathstork only has one eye so you can't really tell if he's winking or not. Did you get that joke? Was I too subtle? Sometimes I'm way too subtle which is funny because most of the criticism I receive from boring people is that my reviews aren't subtle. But then, those are people who actually believe I'm reviewing comic books.

Deathstork and the Justice League begin to fight because a newscopter comes along and the Justice League are all, "We'd better make this ooklay oodgay!" (They speak in Pig Latin so the newspeople can't understand their plan to trick them.) During the battle, Deathstork calls Batman a pacifist. I think maybe Deathstork needs to buy a dictionary. Deathstork may have killed more people than Batman but I think Batman has broken more bones in other people than Deathstork has. And not from hugs, you dum-dums who also think Batman is a pacifist. I could see how it can be confusing though. Batman does hit a lot of people with his fist so at first I was thinking, "Oh yeah! He's totally into pack-a-fisting things!" Then I was all, "That didn't make any sense. Maybe I should buy a dictionary."

Cyborg's plan which he doesn't explain to the readers but the readers know what it is (especially when the reader is me) is to have Deathstork defeat the Justice League on camera so that everybody will run away. That solves the problem somehow. Maybe it's like putting a club on your steering wheel. It's not really that effective at keeping a thief from stealing your car but car thieves see it and just move on to a car without one simply because it's easier to drive a car without a club on the steering wheel.

Even if you were one of those reviewers at Weird Science, you'd probably have realized that the Justice League was throwing the fight because Aquaman was knocked out when Deathstork threw Batman into him. I know Aquaman is lame but comic book physics still have to apply. If Batman was really hurled into Aquaman, Batman's neck would break and Aquaman's nipples have a slight possibility of getting hard. Also, I just read Weird Science's review of this and they totally didn't get the plan until it was explained later.

After everything is sorted (well, sort of sorted), Cyborg asks Batman (after punching him in the face (which is the best time to ask Batman questions)), "Did you bring The Fan to Africa to die?" Batman doesn't answer the question which is the only answer I needed for my question as to why Batman and the others let Deathstork run free. They definitely approve of him killing the people they need killed. The only reason Batman gets so annoyed when Jason Todd or Batwoman kill is that they're ruining his brand. But Deathstork? He's the perfect tool for ridding Batman of sticky problems.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars. Priest gives the Justice League some ethical problems to work through and they don't really work through them. But that's the nature of comic books. The story is just to give the readers a glimpse at one aspect of being a member of a global force for good and how it's used. It's like asking that stupid question, "If God is omnipotent, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" You can't really answer the question. You can just present it so that people go, "Oh yeah! That's a right corker!" Then maybe you can say some things that make it sound like the question has been answered so people leave you alone afterward. But mostly, Priest's story is just one of those stories to say, "You know why the Justice League doesn't fix everything? Because they can't! Duh! Now forget all of that grey stuff because they need to white the universe from black!"


Batman #45
By King, Daniel, and Morey

Rating: 9 out of 10. That might be a little high but it's because there's something I really like about this issue. It's a time travel story which I usually hate. But it's a time travel story which shows why time travel stories are so dumb. In this issue, Booster Gold goes back in time to save Bruce's parents so that Bruce can experience the terrible world that would result from that having happened. Then when everything goes back to normal, Bruce will be all, "Oh yeah! I'm glad my parents are dead! Thanks for such a beautiful wedding gift!" (Oh yeah. The premise is that this is Booster's wedding gift to Batman.)

So anyway, Booster fucks it all up because Booster is an incompetent moron. Which, I'm assuming (almost certainly correctly!), is King's metaphor for how people who write time travel stories are incompetent morons who always ruin everything! "But how could it all go wrong?" you sad losers ask in a sad and loserish way. Because Booster Gold forgets how much Bruce loves his parents! So when Bruce learns the truth, he smashes Skeets so that he can forever live in a terrible timeline where Ra's rules Eurasia and people turn into Jokers on a daily basis in Gotham and Dick Grayson is the biggest 90s Image superhero ever! And of course, now it's up to Booster Gold to fix everything! What a dumb jerk (just like all the writers who write terrible time travel stories! (which maybe now includes Tom King? Oh man! Is that the biggest time travel paradox yet? That I love Tom King's Batman but I hate time travel stories so now I hate Tom King and/or love his time travel story?! (I'm confused. How many parenthetical references has this been?)))!

Booster Gold is more enjoyable in this issue than he is in any issue Dan Jurgens has ever written. That's because Tom King presents him more as the Giffen and Giffen's pal (you remember him! The guy who wrote Moonshadow!) version of Booster. He's a bit of an incompetent dork. That version was always much better than the one where Booster Gold is the sheriff of all time and the most important character in DC continuity.

I still maintain that people who dislike Tom King's Batman have no sense of whimsy and do not enjoy actual story-telling. They just want standard continuity and no risks Batman stories that remind them of all the other boring Batman stories they've read over their sad and pathetic lives reviewing comics at the Weird Science blog.

As a story teller, Tom King might be one of the best comic book writers around. Maybe he's not the best writer or the best at allowing fans at cons to give him oral sex. But he tells entertaining stories. I suppose if you have a continuity stick up your butt and you expect characters to rigorously represent all of the facts listed in DC's Who's Who, and these things force you to scowl and dismiss any enjoyable story that doesn't maintain those standards, I can see why you're stupid. I mean why you don't like Tom King's Batman. Sorry that I just repeated myself there.


The Terrifics #3
By Bennett, Lemire, Hope, and Maiolo

Excuse me, DC? DC? Can I get your attention for a second? I just wanted to clarify something about this whole Dark Nights Metal off-shoot comics thing you're doing? Weren't each of these series supposed to excite the audience by tying the best writers with the best artists? And wasn't this supposed to be the book where Ivan Reis spread butter all over my inner butt cheeks so he could more easily bring me to orgasmic bliss? Because I just looked at the cover through a haze of butter that dripped into my eyes and I'm fairly certain Ivan isn't the artist here. And it's only, you know, the third fucking issue? DC? DC? Where are you going? Aren't you going to answer my question?!

It's a good thing I don't purchase my comics based on who's drawing them. That's the immature way to pick comic books and I'm the exact opposite of immature. Although my favorite moment in Batman #45 was when Booster Gold busts into Bruce's birthday party (unless it's his parents' anniversary party (it might be both!)) and says, "I got you a present, Batman!" Then Skeets is all, "Bruce Wayne." And Booster shouts, "I got you a present, Bruce Wayne!" I suppose if I really were mature, I wouldn't have thought that was funny because it wasn't in iambic pentameter and it didn't subtly refer to a penis.

Another piece of evidence that doesn't support the opposite of immature theory is that my favorite part of this comic book is Phantom Girl's butt.

I mean, sure, it's no Supergirl's bum. And it's not Ivan Reis's Phantom Girl's butt. But it will do, pig. It will do.

Rating: 4 Phantom Girl Butts out of 6 Supergirl Bums. This comic book is comic booky. That's the adjective I save for comic books that I can simply enjoy as comic books. They aren't trying to be anything else and I admire them for that. They've accepted their place in this universe in much the same way I haven't accepted mine. They're better than I'll ever be.

It's just so nice to be able to read a comic book that doesn't make me think nor does it make me think that I should be thinking. Sometimes I want to read a difficult comic book so that I can sound smart when I talk about it. But have you tried finding a difficult comic book?! I might as well be looking for a dick that has been inside of a vagina after I've time traveled to an early eighties San Diego Comic Con. Of course if I did find one, I'd know that I messed up the calculations and landed at a 70s con. Lucky sex crazed bastards.


Batman and the Signal #3
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

This issue begins with Jason Todd saying, "I know you think he's always on time — but in my experience, Batman's always been a little too late." Geez, Todd. Get over it already! So one time he didn't save your life! You can't constantly judge a person on one mistake! You have to wait until they've written twenty or thirty issues of New 52 Teen Titans before judging them constantly! Also, don't go back and read my reviews of Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans because they might expose me for a judgmental hypocrite who immediately started judging Lobdell one-third of the way through the first issue.

Later, Duke Thomas learns that he's a Jesus figure in both the Christian sense and the sun god sense. Duke's family history mirrors Jesus's while the emphasis of this entire story is on the role of daytime in Gotham.

And now, a short dramatic scene in a bar after James Tynion IV had one beer more than he usually has!

Scott: "Have you noticed how nothing ever happens in the day in Gotham, James IV?"
James: "What? Of course stuff happens in the day. Sometimes the Joker even attacks in broad...."
Scott: "Right. So I was thinking, 'What if Gotham had a hero that went out during the day?'"
James: "Like the way Batman sometimes goes out during...."
Scott: "And everything can be day-themed! Like his nemesis can be The Sundial! No, no! GNOMON!"
James: "That's great, Scott. Genius. So smart."
Scott: "Thanks, James IV. But is it enough? It needs a little more of a hook, especially since I'm thinking of using Duke as the day hero. He's already the most boring Bat-kid. How to spruce him up?"
James: "Maybe he's bisexual? And he's got a bit of a crush on his mentor? And maybe one night he drinks one beer more than he usually does and expresses his passionate love for him?"
Scott: "Oh! That's a great idea, James IV! Make him a Jesus figure! That way we can reference how special he is and how he's The One and how he's super important to the DC Universe no matter how boring he is!"
James: "Um, yeah. That's, um, exactly what I just said. I love you."
Scott: "Did you say you drug Jews, James IV? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want a bi-line on this new series I just came up with? And did you get my joke? I said 'B-I-line' instead of 'B-Y-line'! Because you're bisexual!"
James: "Can we get the check? I have to go home now."

Rating: 2 out 5 Sundials. Signal is an appropriate name for Duke Thomas because it's such a boring name. And just to be clear, half of the Sundials I awarded to this issue were because the series was only three issues long. Thank Thomas for that!


Hit-Girl #3
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

This is the issue where Kick-Ass Hit-Girl wades in a little too deep and winds up captured by the people she's been mercilessly slaughtering. You can't have a realistic non-comic book comic book about violence without the hero feeling the threat of death at some point. But being this series is only four issues instead of the usual six, it's also the issue where she escapes capture! Because in the end, even a non-comic book comic book is still a comic book. Nobody wants a real non-comic book story about a violent vigilante because it wouldn't even have enough story to fill one issue before the double-sized final funeral special.

Rating: I still don't like the art although it's probably appropriate for an over-the-top violent comic that relies on proclaiming how cartoony it is or else it would simply be too vulgar for the general population. And when you rely on the general population being thrilled by movies based on your comic books, you have to ease into the super violent territory. Although, I suppose, that argument doesn't really work because the movie this will be turned into will be quite realistic and still have just as much violence and people will love it. That's probably why they had to add the theme to The Banana Splits to Hit-Girl's most violent scene in the first movie. It made it more cartoonish and thus acceptable.


Justice League of America #29
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

At some point in the last few months, some higher-up at DC Comics decided that every comic book they publish should be part of the canonical DC Universe. I think somebody in charge finally read some of Grant Morrison's comic books and thought, "I have a great idea! We should simply allow writers to acknowledge anything we've ever published in the stories they write!" They didn't notice that their eyes began glowing red nor could they have known of the sudden erection that appeared in Grant Morrison's pants. Three of the children's souls Morrison keeps in jars in the pantry dissolved into blessed oblivion as his spell took hold. Now Tom Strong has appeared in The Terrifics and The Watchmen are crossing over into regular DC continuity and Promethea guest-starred in JLA and all the Young Animal imprints crossed over with Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and Danny the Street was used by Chronos to kill Ahl whose first appearance was in the new Doom Patrol and all of Catwoman and Batman's suit changes throughout DC history were showcased in a recent issue of Batman. It's just the kind of thing that makes continuity nerds shit themselves because now they have to accept that Batman pissed his pants thanks to a throw away Kevin Smith line in his and Walt Flanagan's Batman book.

Don't worry about me though! I'm not one of those nerds! I'm the kind of nerd who thinks every single thing that ever happened in a comic book character's long existence should be part of their baggage. Even if fans hate it or it's problematic or it was such a huge miscommunication between the artist and writer that now Hank Pym is a wife beater. I'll accept anything as continuity since that can only help the case that every Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew story has happened in the same universe as Bruce's parents being brutally murdered in an alley.

I'm also pro anything that gives Grant Morrison an erection.

Some people might not think that this is a radical position to hold or that I'm not sacrificing anything by embracing it. But remember that in my comic book philosophy, every story by Scott Lobdell and Ann Nocenti have actually taken place! You have to take the good with the bad. And also the bad with the worst which is, of course, Cullen Bunn's versions of Lobo and Aquaman.

This book ends with Justice League of America becoming the Justice Foundation. That means they'll be using their powers and resources to make the world a better place. I'm assuming the first order of business is to license their teleportation technology to the rest of the world? And maybe to put Alfred's healing tea on sale across the country? What about Lazarus Pit technology? Is that ready for market or does everybody return with insatiable blood lust? Would that even be noticeable in America?

Rating: 4 out of 5 Lobos. Speaking of Lobo, he made an appearance in this issue (which is why the issue received such a high rating (I'm not like one of those totally subjective reviewers who constantly proclaim they're objective. I know I'm subjective (and when I say I'm objective, it's obviously a joke. I can't believe how often I refuse to explain that to idiots who comment on my blog))). It was a strange guest appearance because everybody knows Lobo is a genocidal maniac but still The Atom sends Chronos to be punished by Lobo! It doesn't make any sense unless Orlando is writing a super soft version of Lobo who respects Batman's no-killing rule even when he's not on the team. Or an even softer super soft version of Lobo who made friends with The Atom and respects Atom's opinions and his way of life enough to simply beat Chronos badly instead of killing him. Orlando's Lobo isn't as bad as Bunn's Lobo but he's really skirting the edge. The edge is that place where I read a comic book and then attack the writer's grandparents for giving birth to parents that gave birth to that writer.

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Slave Girl by Love/Hate
This is the kind of song that, upon hearing it begin, your parents might say, "I'm happy to hear you listening to the kind of music we loved! This is that freedom rock, right?" Then the voice the singer uses throughout the album that he doesn't use in the beginning of this song screeches out of the speakers along with the heavier guitar riffs. Suddenly your parents make that face which indicates young people's music is terrible but they don't want to seem uncool so they don't say anything except an involuntary tut as they clutch the pearls that aren't actually there because they spent all of their money raising a musical heathen.
     That description only actually works if this is the year this album came out. Which was nearly thirty years ago. Although since everything is now topsy-turvy, it's possible this song is being played by parents while their children have that reaction. It does have the chorus "She's a gang-bang slave girl. I'll be your home boy," which seems like lyrics that didn't move any kind of outrage dial on our generation but might get a young person today to say, five or six times in one breath, the words "problematic" and "gross" with a side-helping of "cultural appropriation" (because it is a white guy saying "home boy," maybe? I seldom can figure out the reason for offense these days. Maybe young people just react violently to older generations showing any kind of joy).
     I just remembered that I had Love/Hate's second album but I can't really remember it. That's probably fine. The album this song was from, Blackout in the Red Room, was huge in my life in my late teens. Now I generally skip most of the songs when they come up on my shuffle. The whole album just feels like it should be heard while hanging out with friends drinking too much Jack Daniels. When I'm at work, it just doesn't give the right energy.
Grade: C+.


Tupelo by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
This song makes me a little bit sad. It begins "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cloud come. Big black cloud come." I used to sing it to my cat Judas: "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cat come. Big black cat come." Then I would change Tupelo to Jupelo which became one of his nicknames.
      Speaking of Judas's death and current non-existence in the universe, the other day, the Non-Certified Spouse was searching YouTube for videos where cat's squeak like our Pelafina on the living room television via the Xbox. When she couldn't find any, she searched for Turkish Angora cats because that's what we suspected Judas was. She found a video of a cat named Precious who looked almost exactly like Judas. As we watched, Pelafina (who loved Judas as her brother-mother, having suckled on his male nipples when she was just a kitten and he was about a year old) noticed. Her tail poofed up a bit and she crawled toward the television watching Judy's doppleganger cross the screen. After a few seconds, she was distracted and turned away. Her tail returned to normal (unlike when something frightens her and it takes a while to return to its former size). But as the action on the television changed and Precious began moving around again, she looked back and her tail poofed up as she walked right up to the television to take a look. It was both the saddest and most joyful thing I've experienced in a while.
     I've always wondered if Pelafina remembers Judas since most of her time was spent trying to encroach on his space and get him to put her in a headlock as he licked her roughly. She loved him immensely. This seems to confirm that she remembers him since the only other time she reacted so strongly and instantly to images on television was the opening to Constantine (which must prove she's from Hell, I guess?). But now she must think that we've locked Judas away in some kind of Phantom Zone where she can't cuddle with him. I bet she hates us so much right now.
     Oh, I was supposed to be reviewing this song, wasn't I? Well, it's a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song. If you know their stuff, you know exactly what that means. If you don't, maybe this will help you: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' music sounds like your car broke down on a deserted highway where the only building nearby is a haunted lounge run by hipster vampires who haven't paid their electric bill so they run everything on a generator which causes the lights to dim and brighten at random intervals. As you approach the building to see if you can get help, a pack of a dozen itinerant and dirty people come out of the shadows and begin slowly following you while chanting in a barely audible whisper that steadily rises until they're shouting in your ear and you have a mental breakdown.
Grade: B+.


Under My Wheels by Alice Cooper
This is the first song on the album Killer and it might be one of the all-time greatest opening album songs. But before I discuss why that is, can we take a look at that cover?

Remember that project in first grade where the teacher takes a picture you've drawn and gets it transferred to a plate? This looks like Alice's.

If an album called Killer on a bright red background with a snake that is both a phallic symbol and makes you think of oral sex because of the tongue didn't enrage your parents in 1971, having to hear "Under My Wheels" blaring out of your room must have pushed them over the edge. Aside from the driving guitar and thumping rhythm that obviously says, "I'm old enough to be thinking about sex constantly, mom and dad!", this song is either about a person running over their lover or being driven so maddeningly out of their mind by their passion for this person that they will run over everybody in town to go fuck that person. It's hard to say what "I've got you under my wheels" actually means. You would think it meant Alice was having some serious car trouble.
     And if your parents weren't completely driven mad at that point, the second song on the album, "Be My Lover," probably finished the job. It pulls them in by making them think, "Oh, this album isn't so bad at all. It's a bit country and blues, I guess!" Then the chorus is all, "If you want to be my lover, you'd better take me home!" and your parents' heads blew up as they kicked in the door and screamed, "NOT IN MY HOUSE, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH!"
Grade: A-.


Skips a Beat (Over You) by The Promise Ring
If The Beatles or The Monkees were still alive and had heard this song, they would have killed themselves over not having written it themselves (or, in The Monkees' case, they would have killed their song writers (I mean right up until they wrote their own songs!)). I'm not sure a more perfect pop song chorus exists. Too bad it exists in the same song as the verses which are lyrically like stepping in dog shit when you're too drunk to care (I wonder if my music review metaphors to describe songs are as universal as I think they are?). I mean, they're not bad in the way stepping in dog shit is always bad. But they're kind of annoying that they've happened and they're messing up your walk home where you had planned to just collapse in bed and sleep blissfully but now you're going to have to do something about this mess.
     At least the song is short and most of it is composed of the chorus. I'd also like to point out that the musical bridge between the penultimate chorus and the final chorus is just as lovely and perfect as the chorus. So if you ignore the dog poop parts, it's really the perfect pop song.
Grade: A-.


Videodrones: Questions by Trent Reznor
Is this a song? I guess it's not really a song. It's off the Lost Highway soundtrack so it can be forgiven for not being a song. Also it's by Trent Reznor for a David Lynch movie so you're going to get what you're going to get, no matter what you just ordered from the menu. This "song" sounds like a guy masturbating in a canyon while reassuring his penis that everything is going to work out just fine right before something apocalyptic happens. I don't know what that thing is but you can tell by the music at the end that the guy's orgasm didn't really go as planned.
Grade: D.

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Letters to Me!

I didn't get any letters this week, you slackers! But I did have this Twitter exchange with Tom King:

That's all for this week, you jerks! Later!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #21 (Fourth Week of April 2018)

E!TACT! #21
Jesse Chris: A Grunion Guy Story, Eternity Girl #2, New Super-man #22, Detective Comics #978, Suicide Squad #39, Justice League of America #28, Action Comics #1000, Kick-Ass #3, Deadman #6, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


Jesse Chris
A Grunion Guy Story
By Grunion Guy

         "You guys are the greatest," proclaimed Jesse as he flipped his long blonde surfer's hair around his head in slow motion. "Who could ask for a better bunch of twelve male friends! So rad!"
         Jeremy Scaredycat looked askance and turned red. Everybody thought he was blushing because he loved Jesse so much. But he didn't love Jesse as much as he used to love Jesse. He loved Surf Country and hated Valleys way more than he now loved Jesse. Like thirty bucks more even.
         "Hey Jesse," devil's advocated Jeremy. I mean, he was about to devil's advocate. He was actually just getting Jesse's attention in the last quote. Also he believed his argument so maybe he was just the devil. But he didn't want people to know that he believed his argument so he was pretending to just be an advocate. "We should spray paint 'Valleys go home' all over the place because I'm tired of my shoulders being ridden over."
          "Oh, Jeremy," patronized Jesse in that way everybody but Jeremy loved. Simeon and Jacob and Terence and Sebastian and Philip and the other ones all loved it when Jesse looked at them like they were Italian dogs being told to roll over in French. "Render unto Brad what is Brad's. Duh!"
         "That doesn't make any sense, Jesse," replied Jeremy to the audible gasps of the other eight men at the table. I mean ten? Maybe some of them didn't gasp because their mouths were full of Jesse. You'll understand what that means after the next paragraph! "The waves aren't for Valleys! They're our waves!"
         "Oh, Jeremy," Jesse continued in that patronizing way. "This rad pizza is my tubular flesh. And the Mountain Dew is my blood, Brah. Duh!"
         After throwing up, seven of Jesse's friends said, "We totally understand why you said that!" They looked dumbly at Jesse like a French dog being told to roll over in Italian.
          "Man, this is my last dinner with you jerks!" cried Jeremy as he thought about how much non-Jesse's-flesh pizza he could buy with thirty bucks.
          "Well, why don't you leave the tip, what with all that thirty money you have," scowled Jesse but in a righteous way. "And Terence can deny having ordered the appetizers!"
          "What?! Why would you say that?" asked Terence. "And I didn't order them!"
          "Oh my goodness! How did he know you'd say that?!" cried Sebastian! "It's a miracle!"
         "He knew I'd say it because I didn't order them!" denied Terence.
          "Are you sure?" asked Philip.
          "Of course I'm sure I didn't order them! My stomach can't handle all that cheese!" denied Terence again.
          "Oh, to hell with this!" exclaimed Jeremy. "That's him! That one! The one in the Pacific Beach t-shirt!" Several Valleys rushed in to grab Jesse.
          "I got him!" yelled Brad!
         "Me too!" yelled Brad! It was a different Brad from the Valley than that first Brad from the Valley.
         "Oh no!" screamed eleven friends of Jesse! "Let's challenge them to a surfing contest!"
          "Put away your boards!" exclaimed Jesse as he winked at the camera. Later he surfed for everybody's sins. That was the exciting part. But the important part was that he made it through the tube three days later as all the bikini-clad onlookers watched in shock and amazement. Everybody always remembered him forever after that, especially the way he hated gay people.

The End!


Comic Book Reviews!

Eternity Girl #2
By Visaggio, Liew, and Chuckry

Rating: One of my favorite things in the world after Oreos are writers who tell people how to write. It's always so informative for people who think they want to be writers but aren't actually writers. Because if you're a writer, you write. If you're a person who wants to be a writer, you ask writers what it takes to be a writer. Luckily for my love of writers who give writing advice, Magdalene Visaggio (the writer of Eternity Girl!) drops some knowledge on us at the end of this issue: "[W]riting is about saying yes more than it is about saying no. Don't let your fear that your stuff isn't good enough stop you from listening to your instincts. You don't have to be a genius right when you start; spend time writing and figuring out what kind of writer you want to be, and then you'll know what ideas work and don't for what you are doing."

Let's see. I definitely say yes more than I say no, as people (for example, all editors) who constantly criticize my writing will attest. I definitely wasn't a genius when I started out (and have no expectation that I'm somehow growing into a genius the further along I go). I have spent time writing but I don't think I've spent enough time figuring out what kind of writer I want to be! Is that how writing is done? Am I supposed to have an image of me on the back cover of my first novel and write toward that? I want to be one of those guys smoking a pipe and banging tons of ladies. What's a look that says "I bang a ton of ladies!" since I don't think publishers actually let you stick a photograph of you banging a ton of ladies right on the back cover of your novel. And finally, I'm not sure if I'm following the advice of that last sentence because I'm still trying to parse it.

One more great piece of advice from Magdalene: "Live fearlessly, and honestly; this is the only life you get." That's pretty profound when you think about it. I mean, seriously. Think about it! Have you ever considered that you only have one life? I bet you haven't or else you'd be spending it smoking pipes and banging tons of chicks and/or dudes! If you aren't puffing away on a pipe right now feeling superior, you're wasting your life!

In my early twenties, I had that only life you get epiphany and stupidly told my current girlfriend. She, understanding my mind better than I did at the time, said, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I thought it was obvious but I was apparently wrong because she saw my epiphany better than I did! Obviously what my mind was telling me in its stupidly grandiose way was this: "You probably need to break up with your current girlfriend." My mind was right but I was a naïve asshole who probably gave people writing advice and definitely shouldn't have told my girlfriend that thing that was basically code for "I need a new direction in life and some space and really need to change some things, especially one big relationship thing!"

I should probably review this comic book now. I'm not sure how I feel about this series after this issue. I liked the first issue but this one was just depressing. I'm starting to see how a book about a main character desperate to die can be a bit of a downer. The commentary on comic book continuity didn't help to make me feel any better by thinking, "Whoa! Was that post-modern? I think that was post-modern? What is post-modernity anyway? Is asking that post-modern?!"

Two point six out of five stars.


New Super-man and the Justice League of China #22
By Yang, Peeples, Santorelli, and Hi-fi

Rating: This comic book is less fun than it used to be. Three point one stars out of six.


Detective Comics #978
By Tynion IV, Fernandez, and Kalisz

Rating: You might remember how I said I was going to stop picking up this book because I hate typing the IV on Tynion's name, right? Well I did it! I took it off of my subscription box at the local comic book store! But I still have a couple of issues to read in the stack. This is one of them. I haven't read it yet but ignorance has never stopped me from reviewing a comic book. I'm sure this one is as mediocre and Tim Drake heavy as the previous dozen. Two point seven stars out of twelve.


Suicide Squad #39
By Williams, Edwards, and Arreola

Rating: I finally dropped this book as well. It's a shame it's been mostly bad for the last six and a half years since, seeing it on the shelf in December of 2011 while in Phoenix, Arizona, it was the impetus that got me back into comics and reading The New 52. If I had to judge the past seven years based on the quality of comic books I've read since that moment, I'd say it was a bad decision to walk into that comic book store. But if I had to judge it on how much enjoyment it's given me through writing about comic books, it was one of the best decisions of my life. But now, I must finally break up with this comic book because Rob Williams writes terrible one-dimensional characters. He isn't as funny as he might think he is. I suppose he doesn't give a shit if his characters' quips are humorous or not. He just knows he gets the same dollar amount per page no matter how shitty the quality of each page. Well, I finally give a shit and I won't read this shit any more. Point five out of ten stars.


Justice League of America #28
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

Rating: Now that Lobo has left the team, I can finally read this comic book with clarity and objectivity. And it's not very good. For some reason, Orlando has decided that telling a good story is less important than stating a thesis and then restating that thesis and then grabbing the reader by the back of the neck and rubbing the reader's face in that thesis. I'm not sure why he even bothered to give the script to an artist. He could have just written "Inspiration is the most important thing in the world (after diversity, of course. But we covered that in the early issues)." The premise of this story is that super-heroes inspire people to greatness. That hasn't been the reality of comic books for decades (since Watchmen, probably?) but it's still a shared delusion that comic book readers all pretend to believe. Super-heroes aren't meant to take care of our problems for us because that apparently makes us weaker (although that's been the plot of every comic book since Watchmen. Probably); super-heroes inspire us to be as heroic as they are (except more heroic because we aren't invulnerable or good looking). But how could super-heroes be so inspiring if they didn't have inspiration as well? Nobody thinks up or does anything meaningful by themselves. Somebody has to do nothing but inspire before somebody else can think, "Oh! I hadn't thought of that! Now let me do all the real work while you go on singing or raising awareness or being famous or whatever." So super-heroes were inspired by a god of super-heroes whose existence they depend on. I guess without him, little Bruce Wayne would have just shrugged his shoulders after his parents were murdered and grown up to be another boring businessman.

Chronos has decided the way to defeat all the heroes at once is to kill Ahl, the god of super-heroes, with a magic brick. This is one of the few stories in recorded history that would be made better by a final revelation that it was all a dream. The other stories that would be made better by the dream revelation thing are the previous stories in this comic book series. Hopefully the final issue of Justice League of America will be Batman being awakened by one of his own long and painful farts. Then Alfred will walk in, make a sour face, and wave his hands in front of his nose before thinking, "That reminds me. Whatever happened to Batcow?"

One star out of seven.


Action Comics #1000
By lots of people.

Speaking of inspiration being the means to the end of itself, here's an eight dollar book with a bunch of stories all about inspiration! The stories within are best summarized by Geoff Johns and Dick Donner's story "The Car." It's about the guy who owned the car on the cover of Action Comics #1. The man's car is a metaphor for the man's life: he can either fix it or junk it. Superman gives him the option to make his life about helping make other people's lives better so they don't have to live the shitty life that led this man into crime. As Superman and the man speak, the guy says, out of nowhere, really, "Out on 45th, yeah. It used to get so hot, we always wanted to go swimmin' but there weren't no pool." As I read that, my eyes rolled and I blacked out for three minutes. "What the fuck was that non sequitur?" I thought critically. Sure, Superman mentioned the guy grew up in the orphanage on 45th. But who suddenly goes into some sort of nostalgic reverie over that comment? Shouldn't he just be like, "Yeah, I growed up there, Supes. What of it?!"

But being a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, I know when dialogue that sounds unnaturally wedged into the story has been placed there to make a point later. So this man whom Superman lets go to fix his life or junk it chooses to fix his life by making the world a better place. And how does he do that? By breaking fire hydrants down on 45th so that the kids can keep cool! Thank God Superman is on the job to inspire people to make a difference! Can you imagine if those kids had to be a little too warm for a few weeks without this do-gooder's do-gooding?! I'm so glad Superman is out there inspiring us all to be our best selves!

Paul Dini's story, Actionland, is the best story because unlike Tom King and Scott Snyder and Geoff Johns and that Bendis guy, he doesn't think he has to be the smartest guy in the story collection. He just writes a dirty story about Mxyzptlk's sex life complete with rocket boners and purple-headed innuendos. I wonder how many young people will check this out of their elementary school library and get their first sexy time feelings reading this? They'll probably be confused and it will impact their sex life for decades after.

Brad Meltzer decides to twist the idea that everybody else came up with for this book: he has Superman inspired by the people he saves! But his story sucks because it didn't end with "I apologize for killing Sue Dibny."

Rating: I lied. This issue isn't about Superman being inspiring at all. It's, apparently, all about whether or not he's Superman without the red briefs. According to nearly every writer and artist in this issue, Superman's underwear is the most important part of Superman. And while some of them simply put the underwear back on him without saying much about it, Bendis seems to think his entire story hinges on mentioning it over and over and over again. I've never read Bendis so I'm now thinking, "This is what everybody raves about?" I'll simply assume this isn't his best work rather than assume it's typical of his writing. Although why would he write such overwrought pap for his big debut at DC? I'm not talking about the pages of underwear dialogue now. I'm talking about the prologue he's written for whatever he's doing next for DC. Once again we have a writer who believes their voice is so important to the comic book world that they have to bring about their vision of the Superman mythos by rewriting the entire thing. So welcome DoomsMongulod, the newest and worst nemesis Superman has ever faced! Working with Jor-el (because we haven't gotten enough reworking of Jor-el into a terrible person over the last few years (what is this fascination with making the previously glorified parents of superheroes into pieces of shit?)), Rogol Zarr (the Doomsday Mongul Zod Lobo mash-up) was the cause of Krypton's destruction in his quest to kill all Kryptonians.

Okay, maybe Jor-el wasn't part of this guy's quest. I should probably point out that Rogol Zarr simply says he promised Jor-el that he'd destroy all Kryptonians. That was probably meant as a threat and not a handshake deal. I just needed to add this paragraph because my facetiousness is hard to read in written texts to an online audience rabid to correct as many people as possible (whether they need correcting or not!).

58 stars out of 1000.


Kick-Ass #3
By Millar and Romita Jr.

Rating: Kick-Ass finally learns that she's not in a comic book. I mean, she is. But the premise is that she isn't. And she learns the painful lesson about reality this issue when everything goes to hell and she's captured by her nemesis. You can tell he's her nemesis because he looks different than all the other characters who pretty much look the same. That way when she encounters him, she doesn't have to think his name so the reader can say, "Oh! That's who that is! Her brother-in-law! There's no way I would have remembered." Now when Violencia appears, the reader can exclaim, "That's that guy! The really bad one! You can tell because he's covered in tattoos and piercings!" Then everybody in the coffee shop can scowl at that imaginary reader for shouting although it could have been worse. I almost made the reader shout, "That's the fucking cunt who almost killed Kick-Ass!" Then they really would have had a reason to scowl self-righteously.

3 stars out of 5. It might be standard Kick-Ass fare but I guess it's sort of entertaining if you've completely forgotten the premise of the first two Kick-Asses (which is also the premise of this Kick-Ass (I think. I've forgotten the premise of the first two)).


Deadman #6
By Neil Adams

Rating: Thank the stars this is the final issue so I don't have to feel compelled to buy another issue of this nonsensical garbage. I said "Thank the stars!" because I don't believe in God. But is thanking the stars any more reasonable than thanking God even when I don't believe in Him? Because now I sound like one of those wacky jerks from the seventies who believed in astrology and extra body hair and big orange vans.

Every cover of this series has had some kind of secret or special cover right up until this one. But I figure this one must have some kind of secret so I completely ruined it due to being convinced it was a Mad Fold-in. I'm still not positive it isn't so maybe I'll scan it into Photoshop and play around with it for a bit.

It's no good! I can't figure it out! I'm stumped as to how this cover is special. Maybe the fact that it's not special is how it's special! Maybe the only secret is the eye in Deadman's musculature?

Reading Deadman is like watching somebody have a stroke in slow motion. Did people at DC Comics simply accept the pages of this comic book without checking up on Neal? Editor Kristy Quinn must have been paid to not do her job. "Just accept whatever he turns in, Kristy," ordered DiDio as he wrote up a complaint to Human Resources about how long James Tynion IV holds eye contact. "It's not like he's going to come up with anything better on a second try. Did you read The Coming of the Supermen? No? Nobody did. Don't bother reading this either."

At one point during Deadman's "conversation" with Rama Kushna, he says, "You got no time to shut up and get on with it!" I have now spent longer contemplating the meaning of that line than the meaning of my own existence.

I think maybe this issue is a transcription of Neal Adams' personal conversation with God. Or maybe he's ranting at DC Comics for stealing all of his life's ideas and treating him like shit. Doesn't this sound more like Neal ranting at DC than Deadman ranting at Rama Kushna:

Neal: "Do you actually think I want to be here? You suck, you know that? This whole place sucks! If I could...I'd spit on you!"
More Neal, continued: "And you...you soulless witch...you have all my secrets and you hold them away from me!! I hate you...with a blue flame, Rama Bullpucky. You lie to me...and you compound your lies!! You're like a politician. You don't even know when you're lying."

Neal and/or Deadman seems angry at something but it's never really made clear. Nothing in this book was ever clear. It's the ramblings of a madman who gets to draw and say whatever he likes for a paycheck. I'm so fucking envious of Neal Adams right now! Who knew that by working hard your entire life at a job that earns you kudos and respect, a person can be rewarded with a paying soapbox to do whatever the fuck they want?! Why didn't somebody tell me this at twenty?! Instead, I've been on the non-paying soapbox trying to garner an audience by rambling like a madman! Stupid system!

Zero stars out of ten.

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Praise the Lord by Everlast
There are as many versions of rap as there are versions of rock. Maybe more since rock only has the two types: "I love fucking girls" and "There's a girl I want to fuck but she won't let me." I guess if we think of "Prog Rock" as rock, we discover a few more kinds of rock themes, such as "Don't help poor people because it hinders their ambition," and "I read a book once and I'm going to tell you about it now." Some people think the only versions of rap and/or hip hop that exist are "We're about to fuck, baby" and "Let's kill some cops." But this is Everlast so we get the white variation on rap with this song which is "I got beats and can rhyme better than all the other n-words, yo!" I'm not a white rapper so I'm not allowed to say the n-word when I'm being a bit jokey. If I were writing a serious treatise on whatever serious people write about, I would totally use it. The only other time I'd actually use the word n-word is if playing it would help me win a Scrabble championship. And then I'd probably make it plural to get the fifty point bonus and also so I could play it by pluralizing the last word I played, faggot. Although, I bet Scrabble doesn't allow players to use the n-word and I'd lose in a challenge. But they have to allow faggot because I was using the British variation of it, of course.
       Anyway, this song by the jump around guy playing a character named Whitey Ford was written to express how great he is at writing rap songs (presumably all about how great he is at writing rap songs about how great he is). At one point, he compares himself to Edgar Allen Poe which I thought was super clever because I recognized that name as a writer of psychological thrillers and sado-masochistic porn. He also mentions farting in a line where some people catch the vapors. Is that old-time farting? Probably!
Grade: C.

Crocodile by XTC
This song falls into a sub-category of "There's a girl I want to fuck but she won't let me" because it's about Andy Partridge's wife who left him. I think. Aren't all the songs on Nonsuch about that? I suppose every song in existence could be about Andy Partridge and his divorce from his wife Marianne if I think about it for long enough.
       The problem with this song is that it's on an album where I love half of the songs so much that it causes me to dislike the other songs even more than I normally would. So "Crocodile" and "Holly Up On Poppy" and "Humble Daisy" and "Bungalow" wind up covered in my spit and invective because I'd rather hear "War Dance" or "Rook" or "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" or "Dear Madam Barnum" or "Books Are Burning."
       Also, I read up on this album a little bit and discovered that the supposed crocodile noises in "Crocodile" are actually just slowed down pig grunts. Being that I have no understanding of my emotional responses to things (if that emotional response is anything other than blind, angry hatred), I don't know if this impresses me or makes me feel like fool.
Grade: C.

18 Wheeler by Pink
Pink lets us know immediately in this song that we can't keep her down after which she makes me realize my categories of rock songs are completely sexist! Who knew I was sexist?! I certainly learned something today! Also maybe I'm racist and homophobic based on my Scrabble bit earlier!
      Anyway, Pink's song, "18 Wheeler," falls into the rock category of "I'm the girl that's not going to let you fuck her." So while my categories were sexist in their initial perspective, they still work, I guess. It's also a good example of how the "girl" and the "fucking" in my category are completely metaphorical. See, you thought I was really limiting myself in my categories while also being sexist, didn't you?! Well maybe you won't underestimate me next time now that I've pretended I knew what I was doing all along.
       Let me explain: the "18 Wheeler" is a metaphor for music producers. I think. And Pink is all, "You aren't going to treat me like a slave because I'll join the Underground Railroad. Choo choo!" Which might be a bit of an iffy metaphor, Pink. I mean, do you really want to compare yourself to a slave when you're a rock star? I suppose it isn't as bad as her song called "My Vietnam" in which Pink declares how helping feed the homeless one time in her life was as bad as Vietnam. At times, Pink can get really melodramatic.
       iTunes lists the album Missundaztood under the genre of "Dance & House." Who comes up with these things? I'm pretty sure this song is simply "Rock" or "Pop." It certainly doesn't make me want to dance. Especially when Pink pronounces "sword" as "suh-ward."
Grade: C.

Last Dance by The Cure
Most of the songs on Disintegration fall into a subcategory of "There's a girl I want to fuck but she won't let me." That subcategory is "There's a girl I want to fuck but she won't let me because she drowned or something just as tragic. Maybe she just moved on with her life and left me to wither in my heartbreak and pain." This song seems to be about the death of innocence, or the dangers of living in nostalgia, or, maybe, about a man who murders a woman he once loved when they were children because she doesn't love him anymore. It's hard to tell because every song on Disintegration sounds as if you've just taken six Vicodin (it's the only opiate-based medication I've ever taken so it's all I can compare it to! Otherwise I'd probably say, "Five seconds on a morphine drip!" or "Three spoons of heroin!" or "Tea derived from steeping twenty-eight opium poppies!") and learned to listen to music through gauze while somebody sits by you, holding and caressing your hand, reminding you of the death of every pet you've ever had.
       Disintegration really is an album that probably did more harm than good hearing it at the time of my life I did. What I needed was an album that had songs like "How Many Times Does She Have to Tell You No, You Stalker?!" and "Take Control of Your Emotions, You Jackass!" and "Get on With Living, Dope!" Instead I discovered this album which was all, "Why?" and "How could she?" and "Maybe She Can Love Me If I Just Invest Even More Time Than I've Already Wasted!"
Grade: A+.

Some Fantastic by Bare Naked Ladies
I've never before noticed how much this song sounds like somebody simply hit a tempo button on an 80s keyboard before ad-libbing some goofy lyrics. Do all Bare Naked Ladies songs sound that way? I'm currently convinced the answer to that question is "How did I never notice it before?!"
      I was just goofing around when I came up with my rock categories but this song is another version of the "There's a girl I want to fuck but she won't let me." But instead of being sad about it, this guy is all, "If I think about it enough, I'll come up with some ridiculous plan to get her to sleep with me!" Then he lists all of those plans. I think if he had one more verse, it would be all, "I'll buy a van and remove the handles from the inside door before learning which bus you take to work after which I'll pull up and ask you if you can help me find my lost puppy. But first I need to learn where I can buy chloroform."
Grade: B-.

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Letters to Me!

KB writes: There really ought to be an annual Superboy Punch! to clean up continuity. There are of course conflicting opinions about what should be cleaned up, but maybe we start with the comics events that have pissed off a lot of fans, and see if the criticisms are valid, or if there are better versions of those events. Like, Barbara Gordon. There are differing opinions about whether she was better as Oracle in her wheelchair, but I think we can probably agree that the rapey aspects of "The Killing Joke" are worth retconning away.

My Reply: Isn't one of DC's big problems that they try a Superboy Punch! every few years? They should probably just leave everything alone. I especially don't think they should let fans determine what should and shouldn't be canon. They're the worst people to be in charge! Like if I were to write only stuff Doom Bunny wants me to write about, this blog would be full of recipes that didn't have any cheese unless it was cheddar and only in super extreme circumstances. Also if there are nuts in the recipe, there shouldn't be any chocolate. Also every plated recipe would look like an orgasming penis.

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KB Writes: The young have never heard of Chesterton's Fence. It goes as follows:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.""

To put it differently, maybe very simple solutions rarely fix the world because the world is a complicated place. Much more often than not, the "wisdom of youth" is more aptly called "the Dunning-Kruger effect". All in all I think it's a good thing that Tynion IV doesn't have the power to remake the world in his image, because good Lord imagine all the fences he'd rip down all willy-nilly.

My Reply: I think Chesterton doesn't describe his paradox clearly enough, or he needs to work on it a bit more. Sometime in my early twenties, I took up the philosophy that if I really despised something, or something really annoyed me for seemingly arbitrary reasons, I should actually pursue that thing as if I were one of the mindless masses to see if I could understand the joy of that thing. It's why I wound up with my tongue pierced in my mid-twenties. Although that also came about as challenging myself to do something ritualistic so that I could, even if only symbolically, feel like I'd made some transition between childhood and adulthood. I suppose taking my cross country trip in my Volkswagen bus was that as well. And that was a good metaphor for my transition to adulthood since my bus broke down halfway across the country.

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KB Writes: Can I admit that I miss all your daily thousands and thousands of reviews? Not that I want you to subject yourself to that sort of suffering; we've got only one of you so we should keep you in good repair. But, I really did enjoy all the hard work you did. Have you ever considered re-reviewing Cullen Bunn's work to see if you like it any better years later?

My Reply: I miss doing all of those reviews as well! Which is why I'm doing this! I'm not sad to be reading far, far less comic books though. I've finally gotten back to reading actual books at a reasonable pace again and I'm enjoying it. Plus one used book costs as much as one twenty page comic which just makes me hate comic books even more than I do when I'm reading one by Cullen Bunn. Speaking of which, how dare you ask me to consider re-reading Cullen Bunn's comic books! I was just forgetting about Twat Lobo and now look what you've done? I'm bleeding from my eyes and anus!

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That's all for this week! I've forgotten my sign-out! Later, jerkos? That sounds about right!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #19 (Second Week of April 2018)

E!TACT! #19
Metal #6, Justice League: All Access, Doomsday Clock #4, Mother Panic: Gotham AD #1, The Hellblazer #20, Detective Comics #977, Justice League of America #27, Demon: Hell is Earth #5, Suicide Squad #38, The Terrifics #2, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4, and Deathstroke vs. Batman #30
By Grunion Guy!


Comic Book Reviews!

Metal #6
By Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia

Fact That Isn't Fun (It's Just a Fact, You Know?): Metal is the longest running six issue comic book series in DC's history that also has the most issues (well over six! I lost count somewhere around year ten).

But it's finally over, guys! I'm using guys the way the young generation use it after they've just gone to Wikipedia to learn as much as they can about a thing that somebody else mentioned in an attempt to pretend they always knew more about it than they originally did. I mean, I'm not completely using it that way since I haven't just read (and will never read) the Wikipedia entry on Metal. I probably couldn't even find the right one since it certainly disambiguates into dozens of different entries.

Today, I become a man! No, not because I'm going to finally have sex! I did that like four years ago. Today I'm a man because finishing this series feels like the biggest accomplishment of my life! After having sex, of course. Which is what really made me a man in society's eyes. Up until that point, I was just a loser virgin who could tell how every color of kryptonite affects Superman and how many times in the original Star Wars you can see the outline of Mark Hamill's cock through his pants.

Earth-Main-Earth has sunk into the Dark Multiverse. Wonder Woman and Lady Blackhawk remain the last hope for all mankind. And, I'm assuming, the entire Earth-Main-Earth universe. I'm never quite clear on how much the problems on Earth are affecting the rest of the universe. I think, as human readers, we're supposed to narcissistically believe that the fate of the entire cosmos hangs in the balance of what happens to Earth. Mostly I think all of the aliens would just like to see Earth-Main-Earth destroyed for good. There would be so much less drama.

Plastic Man finally wakes up to save the day and I lose all respect for this comic book. Nobody believes Plastic Man can save the world! He's the biggest joke since a few of those schoolyard jokes about the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Who came up with those jokes immediately after the tragedy? I bet it was some Deep State comedian who knew the Challenger was going to be blown up by government operatives and aliens.

Luckily, Plastic Man only saves the day for like a page. I'm not even sure why he was in this comic book. I'm guessing it was a drunken bet between Scott Snyder and Dan DiDio. Snyder was all, "I bet I can bring Plastic Man back into the DC Universe in a serious way." And DiDio was all, "No way. There's less chance of that than a comic book with two women in a romantic and healthy relationship not having a mature rating." And then Snyder was all, "If I fail, you can have James Tynion IV for a night." And DiDio was all, "Deal!"

After Plastic Man saves the day, Wonder Woman saves the day. But only until the real saviors arrive.

Monkeys and Batmen!

Now I'm pissed at DC Comics. They spent five years trying to sell everybody a historically watered down and less fun version of their comic book universe by claiming there were just 52 worlds. But all that time they could have been printing a comic book full of monkeys on a 53rd Earth?! Does DC have no actual business men running their business?!

Batman and Superman also return because I guess they're the ones who need to save the day. The monkeys and Plastic Man and alternate Batmen weren't actually important after all and never really appear again after that splash page arrival. They were the non-raisin bits of this Raisin Bran. Oh, I guess that would be the bran. Now, I like raisins as much as any other boring person but could any company in any of the 53 universes have come up with a more unappetizing name for a cereal? I mean aside from Grape Nuts.

Maybe I should give up on trying to determine who actually saves the day because this issue is just scene after scene of somebody arriving to save the day but then the day never actually gets saved. I guess they're all just making things more hopeful. Especially when The Joker saves the day. That's when every Fangender is supposed to go, "Did Snyder include his dick in this comic book because I think I'm supposed to start sucking it now?"

In the end, the Justice League pull some Sailor Moon shit and believe in each other and save the world while holding hands while remembering all the good times they had with each other, like the time Sailor Batman cheered up Sailor Wonder Woman, and the time Sailor Superman gave Sailor Flash a prostate exam.

Rating: There's the typical epilogue that explains things have only been saved (by fifty different people) for a short time because things are actually going to get worse than what they just went through. You know how stories foreshadow future events as they go along in an unobtrusive way that sometimes you don't even catch until a subsequent rereading? Being a comic book (and a Scott Snyder comic book, at that), this isn't like that. The story resolves with the heroes winning and then there's an epilogue where Batman says, "Things are just going to get worse!" and Lucius says, "Dream, where are you? OMG! There's a book missing in the library of books never written! What does it mean? Aside from it suddenly having been written or something." This is the part where I might wonder how comic books can keep escalating but I've learned that the escalation is all just an illusion. This seemed like the biggest threat to the universe since the last one but was it? They're all really just the same. The bottom line is that everything is always on the line. This story just made the 'everything' part bigger by removing the Source Wall, expanding the DC Universe, and creating a lovable Earth full of monkeys.

All in all, it was a big event that was quite comic booky. That's all I'm looking for. The main problem was all the tie-ins that didn't matter and didn't really add much to the story. DC should have just made this an eight issue series, folding Hawkman Found and The Wild Hunt into the main story. All of the other books should have been scrapped.


Justice League: No Justice All Access Page
By whoever writes this shit

Here's a quote about No Justice from Francis Manapul: "Anyone who has asked for Harley Quinn, Martian Manhunter, Starfire, Zatanna, the Atom, Raven or Doctor Fate to be in their personal Justice League will stand up and cheer." It's nice to see he's shooting for the smallest audience possible. I was almost cheering but he included the Atom instead of Lobo. Man, I was so close to being one of the three people excited for this!


Doomsday's Cock #4
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

Based on this cover, the comic should be called "Rorschach's Cock is Long and Weird."

Doomsday's cock was going to be long and weird since Doomsday has never really had any motivation for wanting to kill everything. But being enraged at the universe for having a micro-penis makes sense to me. Not that I know what it's like to have a micro-penis! My penis is at least twice as big as a micro-penis. And that's when it's flaccid! I know I shouldn't brag about the size of my penis when I'm writing comic book reviews that will be read by comic book nerds. Although I'm mostly writing to fans of DC Comics who have the biggest penises of all comic book fans. I haven't done research on this fact but I have to assume that DC fans have to have enough self-confidence to be shit on by Marvel fans on the daily. And you know the only way people can have any self-confidence is by being okay with their penis size, right?

I don't know how women gain self-confidence. By knowing guys with big penises?

I should stop writing about big penises because I'm getting anxious and a little bit scared.

Let's talk about Rorschach for a second! I just read a comic recently where a character stole the Rorschach line about people being locked up in prison with him but I can't remember which comic book it was. I wish I could remember because I couldn't help thinking, "Why, as a writer, are you lifting that line for your comic book?! It's like one of the most famous comic book lines which means your entire audience is going to snort and scoff when they read it and think, 'What a hack!'" Why didn't the writer use something like "To be or not to be, that's a fairly relevant question"? Less people would have known where the author had stolen that line from than the Rorschach line! That wasn't really talking about Rorschach. I'm sorry for lying to you in the segue into that paragraph.

This is where I first realized the new Rorschach was the son of Rorschach's psychiatrist. Was it evident earlier than this? I mean, probably since there were only two black characters in the entire run of Watchmen and one of them died hugging an old white man.

The new Rorschach, Reggie, has wound up in Earth-Main-Earth's Arkham Asylum because he trespassed in the Batcave. I guess Batman sometimes doesn't give a shit about the rule of law and he just backdoors people he doesn't like into Arkham. It's probably where Rorschach belongs since he was driven insane by Ozymandias's fake alien attack on New York City.

Reggie has been placed in Arkham across from Saturn Girl so I guess it's about time we learn why she's the only member of the Legion of Super-heroes left in DC continuity. I bet it's because she's the only one Superboy had sex with. She probably read his mind when he was looking at her at age sixteen and thinking, "I'd like to have sex with her!" She was flattered because she was too naïve to realize he was thinking that whenever he looked at any female Legionnaire. Also Superboy probably had sex with all of them. Why wouldn't he? The Legionnaires fucked everything that moved! It's what the entire series was based around.

Reggie and Saturn Girl escape while Alfred worries about another one of Batman's choices. How could Batman stick some guy who knew his identity into Arkham without at least erasing his mind first?! Hasn't he learned anything?!

Rating: Four dogs with split heads out of five dogs with split heads. Maybe even four and a half dogs with split heads. This is the first issue that makes me think Johns has the chops to pull this thing off. This issue was the secret origin of the new Rorschach and it may have taken me an hour to read. That's a compliment! Some reviewer said of the first issue of this series that it was a page turner that the reader devoured unlike Alan Moore's. That praise didn't sit right with me because it just screams of fluff and the same old bullshit tropes to make readers think they're reading something exciting. I want a comic book that forces me to take my time with it and this issue was finally that. If the rest of the series tanks, it may have been worth it for this issue alone. Hell, Mothman's story could have been a stand alone mini-comic that I would have raved about for minutes. Perhaps hours even. The one downside is that it didn't mention Doomsday's penis once.


Mother Panic: Gotham A.D. #1
By Houser, Moustafa, and Boyd

Rating: This might be better than the previous version. It also might be worse. It's hard to tell after just one issue, especially when that issue spends the majority of time reminding the reader that Mother Panic has been dumped in an alternate Gotham in an alternate time and an alternate place. Batman has gone missing in this Gotham, presumed dead by The Joker who noticed that nobody ever stops him killing people any more. The city isn't run by Owls either. Instead, The Collective (the organization behind Gather House and turning Violet Paige into Mother Panic) has taken control, turning Gotham into a great place to live (as long as you don't mind pretending you're living in a great place that actually sucks lady balls). The art fits the book, the sidekick character might be reminiscent of Hit-Girl but more likeable and cutesy, and something about Mother Panic's uniform makes me want to fuck her super hard. Not that I've ever fucked anything super hard. Unless almost sticking my penis inside of a vagina as my penis unwound its spool of silly string is an acceptable definition of fucking hard.


The Hellblazer #20
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

Rating: The art is terrible. Just awful. Maybe, occasionally, there's a shot of The Huntress's thighs that made me appreciate The Huntress's thighs just a little bit more than I did before. But that was one panel out of twenty pages of panels. That's about all the rant I have in me on that.

Remember when I used to be so harsh on artists and writers that I'd go on for multiple paragraphs trying to think up unique ways to use time travel to prevent their birth? And now that I've got a more private place to do it, you'd think I'd get even more blasphemous in my descriptions of Rube Goldberg machines that would destroy the fertility of the artist's mother's ovaries. But instead, I can only seem to write the equivalent of a shrug. And I think I know why that is.

When I got back into comic books and first began reading The New 52, I decided to take my time with each issue. I wanted to read carefully and examine each panel with a critical eye. I felt there was a mystery to be solved in this New 52. DC had to have some kind of a plan for their new universe. There had to be a genius reason behind throwing out all of their continuity to rebuild their superhero playground. I haven't reread them but I bet a lot of my early reviews were fairly innocent and upbeat. The jokes were at my own expense, exposing how dumb I was, never faulting the comic book. I chose to believe that I just couldn't fathom the secret depths of DC's huge plan. But ever so slowly, I began to see past the veil. DC had no plan. DC didn't know what they were doing. DC had put no thought into their idea and hired some of the worst comic book writers of all time to help them pretend they were doing something special. It drove me crazy and I began to attack every thing wrong with a merciless fervor.

Fans of DC that had jumped ship because of The New 52 had no sympathy for me. "You should have known," they commented, not really caring to engage with me but needing an outlet to pretend the temper tantrum they threw dropping DC was actually an intelligent and well-thought out choice. But these people didn't get it. DC had a chance to do something wonderful. They could have begun The New 52 with the idea that Rebirth or something like it would eventually happen. They could have had a plan in place. Things could have been foreshadowed across their entire line of comic books. What the people who instantly hated The New 52 failed to understand was that I was doing the science. I was out there running the numbers and doing the math and trying to solve the mystery of what DC was doing. So when I discovered that there was no substance behind The New 52, I took the passion I had for researching the mystery and applied it to mocking the fuck out of them. So, yeah. I eventually reached the same conclusion as all the butt-hurt fans who suddenly didn't have Wally West to jerk off over. But those fans dumped DC from the beginning of The New 52 without proof of its poorly thought out structure. They didn't have the numbers and the facts and the research that I had to back the opinion that The New 52 failed miserably. They claimed to have hated The New 52 but none of them really had to experience it in-depth like I did.

But now that everything is back to normal? I just don't fucking care enough to call Davide Fabbri's mother's twat a superfund site full of dog paddling sperm where the only babies made could either be creatures like the one from the movie Prophecy (not The Prophecy! That one doesn't have the creature I'm speaking of!) or artists that make me wish I'd been born deaf, dumb, and blind. Mostly blind. But I'll take being deaf as well so that nobody can tell me how bad the art is. I don't know why I chose to be dumb too. Maybe so I have a better chance of being a super smeller?

"So what about the story?" nobody is still reading this to ask. Well, the story's okay. It's by Tim Seeley and it features John Constantine and The Huntress. That's a combination that makes it impossible for a story to be terrible. But this is a comic book which means 75% of the reason people are reading it is for the art. And that art is horrible.

P.S. It's possible the terrible art is due to inker Christian Dalla Vecchia or colorist Carrie Strachan. If that's the case, apply all of my insults to their mother's vaginas and send my apologies to Davide's mom's twat.


Detective Comics #977
By Tynion IV, Fernandez, Barrows, Ferreira, Kalisz, and Lucas

Rating: I'm going to drop this comic book because I'm sick of typing that IV after Tynion's name. Also, I guess, for some other less important reasons. One of them is that I'm tired of Tynion's Bat-stories. Here are some things which Tynion thinks makes a good story: smartest kid on Earth thinks up super smart stuff that could revolutionize everything but uses it to stop petty criminals in Gotham; smartest kid on Earth meets other smartest kid on Earth and they smart things up; smartest kid on Earth makes older people look stupid and bitter and gender normative; smartest kid on Earth acts boring and bland and makes me throw up five times from extreme boredom. "Maybe can we have less smartest person in the DC Universe stories?" I say as I sit eager to read The Terrifics #2 because it only features the 3rd smartest person on Earth. "I can't wait to see how dumb heroes tackle problems!" I exclaim while shoving five Oreos into my mouth so that the Non-Certified Spouse in the next room hears, "GRRBBLE GRPDT FLBABBLOLL *hack sputter choke*!" Should I be concerned that she waited for ten minutes of silence after choking on the cookies to check on me?

Gross.

Justice League of America #27
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

Rating: More time travel nonsense with an added side of "Earth superheroes exist because some proto-superguy came to Earth in the Jurassic period and left a footprint." What a time to have just lost Lobo! He'd be immune to Chronos's plan to erase the idea of Earthly superheroes! I knew the Justice League of America was fucked when Lobo chose to leave. Mostly I knew that because it would cause me to stop raving about this comic book and begin treating it like every other shitty DC title. He was this book's Kevlar!

I wish Steve Orlando's name was Steve Orlando IV so I would have a good reason to drop this book.


Demon: Hell is Earth #5
By Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor

Rating: This comic book just reminds me that there was once a Demon comic book written by Alan Grant and drawn by Val Semeiks that was so entertaining that I didn't mind that I wasn't getting laid. Later after I totally laid a non-made-up girl that doesn't exist just for the sake of the story and so that I don't suffer the embarrassment of being another virgin on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that the comic book was better. That might be a controversial opinion because according to everybody who has ever had an orgasm, apparently nothing is better than an orgasm. That's something that I probably agree with so now my argument has been completely invalidated since even I don't support it. Maybe I should stop discussing orgasms before you begin trying to picture the contorted face I make when my totally real sex partner makes me orgasm. Here's a clue to help you visualize it: Disney log flume souvenir photo.

I would love to reread Grant's Demon comic book (along with the later issues by Ennis and McCrea) but those comic books are still in the basement of the house in which I grew up. The good news is that my mother is driving up to visit this summer and she's offered to bring up more comic books! The bad news is that my mother is coming up to visit!

I haven't even read this comic book and I'm purporting to rate it. I'm beginning to wonder if I even need to read the comic books I'm reviewing any more. It would certainly save me a lot of money. And as an added benefit, I could start reviewing Marvel books too!


Suicide Squad #38
By Williams, Derenick, and Arreola

Rating: I forgot to take this off of my pull list. Maybe my subconscious won't allow it. I try to cancel it but then I black out and wake up naked in a pile of old Ostrander issues. Maybe if I get hypnotized, I'll be able to do it. Because it really needs to be done. This comic book is so terrible that I'm beginning to fantasize about an Ann Nocenti version of the Squad drawn by Brett Booth.


The Terrifics #2
By Reis, Lemire, Luis, Tarragona, and Maiolo

First let me offer congratulations to the creative team for making Linnya Wazoo, the only female of the group, super hot. That might sound sarcastic because what female superhero isn't super hot, right? But it's not sarcastic. That congratulations comes from the bottom of my heart and the tip of something else. Probably my brain but don't make me declare that while hooked up to a lie detector unless you want to be offended. And if you want to be offended, just accept that, yes, I meant my erect penis. But seriously, you try not having an erect penis when looking at Tinnya Wazoo in that tight uniform.

Mister Terrific's uniform is just as tight but that only suggests that he has no genitalia. That Linnya has no discernible genitalia is hot because my mind is going crazy imagining what a woman looks like down there. I bet a woman's private place is just an image of a naked woman, right? That would be hot on so many levels. Probably.

I felt guilty, ashamed, and reprimanded when Linnya said, "Don't look at me."

I had a huge crush on a girl named Marilyn Mendoza in junior high. She spent every lunch in the library so I would too so that I could stare at her (I was with friends, of course! I didn't just sit their creepily alone. I was creepy while with friends). One day, her friends noticed me staring at her. As she walked out of the library, she came past my table and said, "I don't like being stared at." After that, I was heartbroken but I basically abandoned my crush and tried to ignore her. I stopped staring and just tried to not die from sadness. A few months later, she walked past me as I was going into the school wing with my locker and she said, "Don't go in there. I think a fight is about to break out." But I said I needed to go to my locker. At least I think I did. I might have said, "Grbble snack pediddle." It was hard to tell with my heart beating so loudly and my love machine whirring back into action.

Some time after that, we were sitting across from each other in the library passing notes back and forth. At one point, her note to me said, "You're weird." I don't know what I wrote in response to that. She responded, "I like you anyway." I didn't even know how to respond to that and, weirdly, stopped passing the note back and forth.

Some time after that, she convinced her friends to join the P.E. class that me and my friends were signing up for. During that class, she tried to casually give me one of her school pictures and I, shyly and stupidly, laughed it off and didn't take it.

If you're wondering what the fuck was wrong with me, you're still miles behind the amount of thought I've put into that.

Some time after that, at the end of the school year, she asked me if she could sign my 9th grade year book. She wrote a long note that seemed a bit form-letter-ish but was sweet and way more eloquent than the "P.S. I'll miss you" that I wrote in hers. Her cursive was beautiful and immaculate and she surrounded what she wrote with junior high school 80's designs. After signing her name, she wrote, "P.S. Say hi to Kim for me! JK!" Kim was a girl I'd known since elementary school and we always sat next to each other in class because our last names were so close alphabetically. We were friendly enough that I guess it seemed flirtatious. Being an anti-social shy nerd, I couldn't flirt. Also I didn't even know what "JK" meant.

Some time after that, in the middle of summer after 9th grade, my friend Sal was looking through my yearbook. He said, "Who is this girl who said she loves you?" And I was all, "What are you talking about, you stupid illiterate idiot?" He showed me Marilyn's note to me and sort of mixed in with the designs she'd made, she'd written, "Luv you, kid!" I never saw Marilyn Mendoza again.

So you see, children! The moral of this story is to stop staring at women when they want you to stop staring at them and they'll fall in love with you so that you can throw the entire potential of a doomed and awkward childhood romance into the toilet with your weird behaviors! Isn't love grand?!

That short story was probably better than 95% of all of the comic books I've ever read over my lifetime. That might sound arrogant but I'm just stating the non-subjective facts. "Non-subjective" means "objective"!

Linnya tells her origin story to the other Terrifics and I think it's supposed to be tragic but I wound up laughing a lot. See, she was on vacation with her parents when some space problem cropped up. For some reason, the ship they were in had an escape pod which only had room for one member of the crew. I suppose that makes sense because why would a ship the size of a Volkswagen house another ship the size of a Volkswagen to escape in case something happened to the first Volkswagen? But then it doesn't make sense either because why have an escape pod that only allows for one person in a ship to escape? That's going to make for a seriously tense game of roshambo.

Anyway, Linnya's parents send her off in the pod which subsequently gets sucked into the space problem while the parents go free. I bet they were kicking themselves for weeks over that mishap.

Luckily Linnya aged while stuck in phantom form without needing to eat or pee otherwise I'd be feeling even more shame and guilt over the way her uniform fits. She doesn't say how old she is but she must be that perfect female age where she's old enough so that nobody can arrest you for wanting to engage her in adult pastimes but young enough that she's not yet thirty and gross.

I learned that women don't matter after thirty from songs by Marina and the Diamonds and Lily Allen. I don't think they were meant as criticisms of that way of thinking at all!

Metamorpho tries to touch Phantom Girl without her consent and his hands pass right through her. He then apologizes but not, I think, for the non-consensual attempt at contact. I think he's sorry that his hand passed through her titties. That does seem inappropriate.

Um, so, the Terrifics escape the Dark Multiverse and everything works out. And in only two issues! I mean, there is the problem that they can't wander more than a few dozen feet away from one another without all of them dying painfully. But that's just a plot point to force them to work together for the entire run of this comic series. It's not a real issue!

Rating: I hate this comic book way less than I hate all of the other comic books I'm reading (aside from Batman and Mister Miracle and Snagglepuss and maybe Eternity Girl). I might even sort of like this book even though it features Plastic Man. Plus there hasn't been a bum like Linnya Wazoo's since the early days of The New 52 Supergirl!


Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4
By Russell, Stilwell, Feehan, Vazquez, Parsons, Mounts, and Campbell

Rating: This is the kind of comic book that will get reviewers straining their intelligence muscles. It's the kind of book you have to talk smartly about or else your review site will look like it's run by rubes. It's the kind of comic book that requires footnotes and mentions of how much you know about specific events in history and how they differ from their portrayal here. It's the kind of review that I'd never do. My only criticism with it is that the anthropomorphic animals don't wear pants and yet I haven't seen one animal ding-dong or hoo-ha.

I didn't realize while writing the above with left leaning comic book reviewers in mind that it would be even more true for right leaning comic book reviewers. But apparently this is just the type of comic book that gets them to write about how much they know about history so that when they say, "This comic book is boring," it will have more authority than just saying, "I disagree with the obvious leftist slant in the politics and the most damning critique I can give it is saying, 'Meh.'"

Sometimes I think if my mind were erased and I was left as a blank slate with no knowledge of how the universe worked or what exactly was going on, but I still understood language (only the English language, of course. What am I? Not American?!), I would know instantly which side of the political aisle I belonged on just by which responses from one side to the other I enjoyed more. So I wouldn't be moved by "You're just shocking to be shocking" (or, even better, "You think you're shocking but you're not," which is just another way of saying, "I was shocked but I don't want to admit that you shocked me." Although what is "being shocked" anyway? Isn't that what humor is all about? You don't laugh because you see the punch line coming. You laugh because it jumps out from behind a bush and shoves its finger up your ass. No wait. That probably isn't a laughing matter because I just realized that analogy is rape) but I would totally be won over by "You've probably never made a woman come." After which, I might have to concede that the lame argument about people being shocking just to be shocking might have a granule of truth. Although, having been accused of "being shocking for the sake of being shocking" by boring people on the boring Internet, I can say that, from my perspective, most people aren't out there trying to be shocking. A lot of us just don't hold anything sacred and say things that make us laugh, figuring other people will find it funny as well.


Deathstork vs. Batman #30
By Priest, Pagulayan, Paz, and Cox

How many times have Batman and Deathstork fought now? Don't they do it every six months or so? I think DC Comics has a permanent Google Calendar alert set for this event. Occasionally they'll trash the Batman vs. Deathstork event and ramp it up so that it's Deathstork vs. Superman. I think sometime in the early 90s, the decision was made to alternate which hero Deathstork has to beat to continually prove that he's the best super-villain in the DC Universe. Although I don't think anybody at DC has thought of him as a villain since just after he stopped having sex with a minor. Since then, they're constantly playing up his mercenary with a sense of ethics card. When he fights with heroes, it's understood to be some kind of misunderstanding.

I guess he sometimes battles Wonder Woman too but since Daniel or Finch or Mrs. Finch was writing that story, I've mostly purged it from my memory.

Rating: Batman finds evidence that Damian might be Deathstork's son. He's desperate to finally learn if he can write Robin out of his will and he's willing to murder Deathstork's ability to make money from murder until he clears up the confusing newly discovered DNA results. Deathstork's response is to threaten Batman and Batman's family because that's never caused the violence to escalate in the past. What is wrong with these two guys? They know exactly what to say to make a conflict between them last for six issues. That's just long enough to sell as a graphic novel later.

My only question with regards to Batman and Deathstork constantly fighting is why does Batman allow Deathstork to keep killing? Is it because Batman knows he can't beat him? Or is it the same reason Batman lets Jason Todd go on killing? And Wonder Woman (who doesn't kill as often but also doesn't see the problem with it)? Is it because Batman's war on crime is only a war on random crime? He doesn't want random people dying due to criminal activity but it's okay if a criminal dies due to their criminal activity? That seems about right. He's got an old school sensibility about responsibility.

Or maybe Batman just figures if Deathstork were really a problem, Superman would throw him into the Phantom Zone. And since that has never happened (unless it has?), Deathstork must be a pretty swell guy.

Deathstork and Batman didn't fight much in this issue so Deathstork vs. Batman has started off in a disappointing manner. But since Priest is writing this, I bet he takes a completely different tack with it. I bet Batman and Deathstork simply face off on a matter of philosophy. Instead of trading punches, they'll trade biting existential remarks about the other's ideology. Preferably while sipping cappuccinos in a Paris café.


Sorry for such a long newsletter that was all comic reviews. Maybe next time I'll just draw a bunch of sexy Dick Grayson pictures. Goodbye, jerkos!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #14 (Second Week of March 2018)

 

E!TACT! #14
Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1, Deadman #4, Michael Cray #5, Suicide Squad #35, Detective Comics #974, Justice League of America #24, Sideways #1, Action Comics #997, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Zero Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

Thanks to my stupid quarter anniversary issue, I've fallen way behind on my comic book reading! I could probably blame other things like video games and my absent father but I don't want to sound like a whining loser. I want to sound tough and industrious! "I was too busy writing something else to write my opinions on the shittiest of pop culture's offerings!" That was a quote exemplifying the industrious part of the illusion. Here's the quote showing off the tough side: "Fuck everybody! I'll punch them square in their jaws!" Whoa! I wouldn't mess with me!

This would normally be the newsletter where I read eighteen comics in one sitting and offer up a dick joke or two for each book. But the top book on my list is Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt. How the fuck am I not going to write an in-depth explication of a book co-authored by Scott Snyder and Grant Morrison?! Now the bulk of this newsletter will be taken up by this bullshit and I won't be any closer to shortening my stack of unread filth and disappointment! Fuck you, Grant Morrison! I'll punch you square in the jaw!


Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1
By Snyder, Morrison, Tynion IV, Williamson, Porter, Jimenez, Mahnke, Mendoza, Hi-Fi, Sanchez, and Quintana

The story begins with Detective Chimp quoting Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I can see why some people would throw roses into this statement's face but I have a problem with it, in the context of when it was supposedly spoken. If the choice is exile or death, why can't I choose exile without looking like I sold out on all of my principles? Can't I still examine things in exile? Surely the boys I corrupted could check out books for me from the library and bring them to my cave where I spend fifteen hours a day masturbating. Even if they couldn't, isn't masturbating fifteen hours a day better than death? Don't answer that, you prudes! It totally is.

Of course, I'm ignoring the fact that Socrates believed in an afterlife. I suppose if I was positive there was another world after this one, I wouldn't have to wait to be sentenced to death for corrupting the Tumblr youth with my problematic and sexy ideas. These wrists would be gushing blood as I ran about the neighborhood telling the children, "Death is easy! Life is hard! And I'm pretty fucking lazy, so, you know." The afterlife couldn't be any worse than this farce of a capitalist democracy in which I indulge in every creature comfort but still drown in existential angst because I have to pay rent and cook my own meals, could it? Unless the afterlife is worse than a farce of a capitalist democracy and is a farce of a fascist military state! Oh man. Now I'm even more afraid to die than I was five minutes ago (where I was at my peak fear of death. In five minutes, it will probably be a new peak fear of death. That trend should continue right up until I think, "What is that nois....").

Back to Detective Chimp, I don't think Socrates was saying life wasn't worth living unless you were a detective examining crime scenes. I think Dr. Chimp is being a bit flippant about the quote. But then this is Snyder so the quote will probably prove to be important later which is why it had to be uttered now as a non sequitur. I mean, I guess it's not a non sequitur since it's simply the first thing the chimp utters. It's actually the beginning of the story because Detective Chimp is investigating who said the quote and why he can't remember who said it. If only he had access to Wikipedia, this comic book would be over! But chimps aren't allowed to use the computers in the library because they would spend fifteen hours a day masturbating there.

Detective Chimp remembers how he escaped from the circus only to team up with Rex the Wonder Dog. That means I need to reassess who the main writer on this book was. Must be Morrison! You know, because an old comic book character has now been resurrected. Also because I'm finding the story interesting and entertaining!

Rex leads Detective Chimp to the Fountain of Youth which also happens to be the Fountain of Smarts. As soon as Detective Chimp learns to think past the constant rage that makes him want to tear the faces off all the patronizing furless apes he's ever met, he discovers that all cruelty stems from a lack of imagination. I don't know. The Inquisition came up with some pretty imaginative ways to be cruel. He equates a lack of imagination with "anti-music!" That totally sounds like Morrison. I hope that doesn't mean that's the end of his section because then I'm left with reading shit by James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson. I'm bored just imagining the anti-music those jerks came up with.

It's also possible Morrison got a co-writing credit simply because this story is using so much of his Multiversity shit. I don't know everything! More like I know everything minus X where X is a pretty low number. Unless not knowing things is what makes a person smart! No, no. That makes a person wise! So knowing things that I know I don't know makes me the wisest person of them all. Is that how that works? You know I'm wise because I pretend I'm not? Cause I totally am not wise. Way dumb, me! I mean, am I smart because I know stuff or wise because I don't know stuff? Can nobody ever actually have an 18 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom? Fucking Dungeons & Dragons. Lied to me yet again!

This would probably be the new blog header if I cared about updating the blog.

T.O. Morrow has determined that something cosmic is happening because the immutable laws of physics are changing. To demonstrate this, he uses the most immutable law of physics around: the boiling point of water!

Excuse me while I slam my face through my office window three or four times. Okay, actually just once. I need more windows in here.

Since none of my readers are conservatives, I don't need to explain why I just destroyed my beautiful face out of frustration. Let's just move on.

Detective Chimp has been trying to guide Flash, Raven, and Cyborg to the Hall of Heroes. The team travels in the Ultima Thule while being chased down by all of the Dark Knights. They call themselves The Wild Hunt now. Did they call themselves that prior to this issue? And did I just forget that Flash, Cyborg, and Raven wound up on the Ultima Thule? I guess I must have since this Metal shit has been going on for approximately eight years now.

The Wild Hunt's ship (The Carrier! Did I miss when they stole that from Stormwatch?) runs on a baby universe. Like Rick's ship! The Flash's plan is to free the baby universe which should stop The Carrier and also fix the multiverse with its positive baby universe energy. Also it will allow DC to make a completely new comic book line, hopefully designed by Grant Morrison.

This is why so many writers choose to have Flash fight other speedsters and/or time travelers. Because every conflict would end like this. The problem with writers using that solution is that these three panels are far more interesting and entertaining than a five issue story arc where The Flash can't beat somebody because they're faster than he is right up until the moment The Flash believes he can run faster and thus does and wins.

The only problem with The Flash doing the thing he thinks will save the day is that his doing that thing was part of the plan of the Bat-Joker. In other words, every single thing that has happened was part of a plan that would never actually work because the calculation contains about seventeen million variables. So, in traditional comic book fashion, it makes me happy one moment only to shit all over my happiness, lap up the shit and my happiness, digest it so that my happiness is now intrinsically part of its shit, and then shit it all over me once again.

Flash, Raven, and Cyborg winding up as a team and boarding the Ultima Thule and heading to the Hall of Heroes being directed by Detective Chimp and other super scientists while also being infected by Dark Baby Universe missiles (along with all the other things that had to happen along the way) was the main part of the plan to destroy the Multiverse. I guess I just have to stop thinking that superheroes are smart and just resign myself to the realization that they're all easily manipulated fools. Maybe it's more believable because the bad guys are twenty-eight Batmans.

The end of everything almost happens. But just almost because there is still one more issue of Metal to sell for loads of cash. Coming through to save the day are the super chimps from Earth-53. That's right! You read that correctly! A 53rd EARTH! What an incredible twist! Also that it's the Earth where everybody is a monkey. Also also, they're going to save the multiverse. Ha ha! How funny! A bunch of monkeys saving the day!

The Wild Hunt #1 Rating: It was pretty good! The best Metal book yet! Mostly because it was so closely tied to Multiversity and second mostly because it starred Detective Chimp.


Deadman #4
By Neal Adams

Deadman discovers that he was killed by the League of Assassins in retaliation for his parents killing a bunch of Yeti guarding Nanda Parbat. I think there's more to it than that, like how they were searching for their son Aaron who was given to the League as payment for healing Deadman's mother. Unless I got some of that wrong because my memory of comic books I hated isn't the best.

So is Deadman satisfied with his journey of self-discovery yet? Hopefully not because I still haven't found out why Commissioner Gordon was inspecting Japanese nuclear plants! I'm beginning to think that Neal Adams is just hoping that I'd forget about that part. But Neal Adams doesn't know how stubborn and bitter and hateful I can be.

Boston reveals to the Spectre that his father was lying. Well great! That really means two more issues of this shit! I actually had myself convinced that it was going to end early. What a sap!

Apparently Ra's wants Boston Brand back in Nanda Parbat for some important League of Assassins reasons. There's some other confusing stuff about Aaron Brand that I don't think matters but it probably will matter. Which is disappointing because it's terrible and confusing. I hate this book. Why do I now own four issues of it?

Deadman #4 Rating: Possibly the worst comic book I've ever read after Deadman #1 and Deadman #2. I think Deadman #3 wasn't quite as bad as the others.


Michael Cray #5
By Hill, Ellis, Harris, Vines, Owens, and Kelly

This issue begins with a bunch of New Zealanders sacrificing a woman to Aquaman. She's probably a virgin because that's always the scam. You get a bunch of zealots to proclaim that their god will only be satisfied by a virgin sacrifice so that all the women of the village suddenly loosen their pants-strings.

Male Elder (with throbbing boner) speaking to throng: "Looks like we're going to have a poor harvest, wouldn't you agree, Bob?"
Male Elder named Bob (also with throbbing boner): "Yep. I think we might need to sacrifice five or six virgins this year."
Male Elder gazing at lush farm fields (with boner, of course): "Well, we might do get by with only one if we're lucky, right?"
All the women: "Oh, um, we totally fucked already. Maybe we can just try our luck with hard work and scientific advancements in the agricultural sciences?"
Male Elder standing with hands on his hips and thrusting his pants-tented boner toward the crowd: "Seems awful risky. Nope, I think we need some virgins. And y'all keep saying you've fucked but there's only one way to know for sure."
All the women: *collective sigh*
Male Elder named Bob: "Now who wants to get their name crossed off the list first? Remember, anal counts as doubly devirginizing!"
All the male virgins planning their next Dungeons & Dragons campaigns: "Fucking sluts! Why don't they ever fuck us?! We can't wait to become powerful village politicians running on conservative and traditional values so that our community never evolves and grows and we get our turn to get laid thanks to terrible historical power dynamics!"
The non-virgin male: "Or maybe you could, I don't know, treat the women like actual people?"
All the male virgins: "And risk them getting their hands on the reigns of power? What if they decide 'virgin' can also mean male?! They'll do it, you know! They won't make things better! They'll just make things as bad as we've made things but for us! Don't trust them!"
Non-virgin male eating pussy: "Garble blargle...oh, um, excuse me. Did you say something?"

"'Why her?' She knew this dick wasn't going to suck itself."

I wrote my vignette using the "elder" characters before I got to the part with that elder character because I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader. Although if I were really serious about being a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, I should probably better remember the comic books I've read. Although it's not like I claim to be a Grandmaster Comic Book Historian! I'm just good at reading them and guessing where they're headed and pulling out my dick and pissing all over them.

And don't think you can picture my dick in your imagination just because I mentioned it, you pervert! That was just a metaphorical dick standing in for the abuse I heap upon the comic books I waste my money on!

Aquaman doesn't die yet. We'll get to that next issue. And believe me, I'll be buying five copies of it! No wait. Just four. Oh shit. This book is $3.99? Maybe I'll just read it off the rack.

Michael Cray #5 Rating: This book felt like it was going downhill for a few issues (which means most of the issues after I lost my "Green Arrow is going to die!" boner). But I really liked this issue for some reason! "Some reason" is the best you'll get out of me. Other comic book reviewers would be all, "The art was particularly tasty in the way it showed the emotion inherent in the words that were written so well. Plus the letterer did his job so I was able to read it." Then they throw a bunch of dick sucking superlatives across a few closing sentences and rate the thing 9.8 out of 10. But not me! I don't know why I like or dislike things! So I don't bother trying to come up with reasons. I just read the book and then glance at my crotch to see if I liked it or not.


Suicide Squad #35
By Williams, Pansica, Ferreira, and Lucas

Ugh. Williams is back? Not that what's-his-name from the last couple of issues was any better. I wonder how many unread issues of this comic book are being purchased by Harley Quinn fans to prop up the illusion that it's a successful book?

The cover of this issue says, "And their dead shall come for them!" So that means, um, Hack will be back? She's the only member who has died. I don't even consider her an actual member. She wasn't a prisoner. She was just kidnapped from another country's prison and forced to work on the team because Amanda Waller gets to write reality. But Hack put up with it because she wanted to fuck Harley Quinn.

By the way! (Is that a complete sentence? Does this parenthetical reference work? What are grammar?) Is that how reality works? If somebody is in prison in one country and they somehow find themselves in another country through a ridiculous plot device, do they have to be placed in prison in the new country? My guess is that it doesn't work that way because it doesn't even work when somebody is a child rapist in America and they move to France to suddenly not be a child rapist. Or if somebody is a rapist in Sweden, they can move to a broom closet in the basement of an Ecuadorian embassy in London to remain "free."

Anyway, Hack has come back because — as I've noted before — nobody actually dies in the Suicide Squad. Everybody gets to come back. Except Light. Or was it Lime? Who can tell?

Suicide Squad #35 Rating: This book is terrible. I hated myself for buying it. Then I hated myself more for reading it. Then I realized I can't actually hate myself any more than I do when I'm not reading it. So why not keep reading it? Now I hate myself for coming to that conclusion. Why doesn't my mother love me?!


Detective Comics #974
By Tynion IV, Briones, and Passalaqua

This issue is called Knights Fall because Batman fans can't get away from witty writers who won't stop referencing past story arcs to score easy fan points while also showcasing how "night" and "knight" are homonyms that can be cleverly manipulated in the Batman franchise. So immediately after reading the title "Knights Fall," I found myself foaming at the mouth and orgasming involuntarily. If I hadn't already had loads and loads of sex with women that would probably mean I'm not a virgin anymore, right? Although, just to clarify for hypothetical reasons, would I say my first time was with James Tynion IV or Detective Comics?

Batwoman has killed Clayface and now all the Bat-people are angry at her. Batman is all, "You killed a person that was going to kill hundreds of people! How could you?! Now you have a death on your hands when technically, if you hadn't killed him, you wouldn't have hundreds of deaths on your hands! Haven't you read my book, Five Million Excuses For Why Somebody's Death Wasn't Technically My Fault?!" Then Batwoman is all, "I did what any soldier or cop would have been lauded for doing!" And Tim is all, "Fuck soldiers and cops! We're better than soldiers and cops! They're scared sheep who think violence is always the answer!" Batman sort of coughs and adjusts his tie and looks askance at that. Then Cass is all, "Look at me crying, readers! Doesn't your heart just break for me! Boo hoo!"

It's really all quite dramatic! I'm quivering with whatever emotion it is that other people can feel that makes them quiver!

Azrael and Batwing decide to tell Batman sometimes killing works so they get put on leave alongside Batwoman. As if Batman has the power to stop a vigilante from vigilanting. Who died and made him king of Gotham? Oh, that's right! Thomas and Martha!

Thankfully, Tim Drake was visited by a morally corrupt version of himself from the future which enables him to struggle with the actions he wants to take. If he didn't already know he's heading down a dark path, where would the immediate conflict come from?! Boy how I love time travel and alternate timeline story arcs! They make it so much easier to write dramatic character moments! I might miss the subtleties of seeing Tim Drake veer down a darker path due to his present experiences if I hadn't already been told about the dark path! Thanks for telling me how I should feel about each character and their decisions, James! I hate the feeling of ambiguity I'm left with after reading works by great writers.

Meanwhile, Ulysses is working with Brother Eye to bring about the worst DC future possible. I mean, it's not actually worse than the canonical version of DC's future. But I guess it's bad because Tim Drake becomes a menace and a killer? We already knew he would become Harvest anyway so how is this any different?!

Detective Comics #974 Rating: Should comic books only be reviewed by people who enjoy that particular comic book? Does it really mean anything if I say I hate Detective Comics written by James Tynion IV? That's what everybody expects! I suppose it only means something if I say I like it and somebody who loves the series says they hated it. I don't mean the same issue! I just mean...oh, forget it! You probably know what I mean. And if you don't, I can't blame myself for your lack of comprehension. Especially if you've made it this far into the newsletter. You know my writing has no clarity!


Justice League of America #24
By Orlando, Edwards, Henriques, Hi-fi

The Justice League of America saves some day from something terrible happening. Promethea makes an appearance to remind me that I still need to read that series. And then after everything is settled and peace has been made and there's nothing left for anybody to do, Batman shows up to be the leader again. Christ. He's like that one member of the installation crew who only shows up after the truck has been unloaded and then disappears once again when you turn your back, leaving only a whiff of meth smoke in his wake.

Justice League of America #24 Rating: Well, it had Lobo in it. So it was the best comic book I've read this week!


Sideways #1
By Rocafort, DiDio, Jordan, and Brown

You can tell these new Metal-inspired books are crap because they give the artists top billing. I'd say it's an insult to the readership as well, assuming that they believe art tops writing but as we all know, that's mostly true. It must be or else we'd all have our dicks stuck balls deep into The Familiar Part May 5th by the guy who wrote the book about a house. And I meant our metaphorical dicks and our metaphorical balls. Later, I'll say something about our metaphorical vaginas so that nobody feels left out and so that hermaphrodites feel doubly left in.

My Four Hermaphroditic Readers: "I really identified with both of those metaphors while ruining my underpants in two ways!"
Me: "I really don't know anything about hermaphrodites!"
My Tumblr Readers, scrutinizing every word carefully: "They haven't made any semantic mistakes that we can call them out on but my gut tells me they're erasing the transgender community!"

I should be happy that they put Kenneth Rocafort's name first. It saves me time realizing that I'm not interested in this comic book. Yes, I purchased it. But I only did that because I only had about four comics in my pull box that week. So my adult reasoning went something like this: "I'm an idiot with three extra dollars in my stupid pocket! Let me ruin future me's day when he realizes past me (currently present me!) purchased this awful book for him to read! Ha ha! In your face, fatty!"

"Don't worry. My father is used to hearing me scream at myself constantly."

Sideways is a young person in young school who has young friends with young attitudes so that should get the young people reading this young comic written by a sixty year old man.

Sideways' best friend is Ernestine. She's the exact character an old person would come up with after doing a bunch of research on Tumblr if that old person were making a character to connect with the kids. She's got her own unique style that's actually just pop culture camouflage hiding whatever her true personality is. I suppose the true personality is that she loves things so much that she squeeeees. She's the person who feels they have to be the biggest fan of everything to show how perky and different they are. She also wears a tiger skin onesie to school. And just to make sure that the readers understand just how outside of "normal" societal standards she is, she has a twin sister who totally dresses like mainstream America expects teenage girls to dress! She's got the regular pants and the regular shirt and the regular half-jacket and the regular shades on her regular blonde head. She also makes sure to point out that Ernestine's outfit isn't appropriate for school. In other words, she's a Popular. And us comic book reading nerds understand that they're the bad guys!

Sideways, like The Flash, is always late. That's a hilarious character defect for somebody who can be anywhere instantaneously! I bet Dan DiDio chuckled for five minutes thinking up that character trait.

Sideways is a brown boy named Derek who was adopted by an upper middle class white couple. Didn't society agree three decades ago that this was a racist trope? Weren't white people's lust for rescuing the non-whites satiated by Diff'rent Strokes and Webster? I suppose if I wanted to be upbeat with my hot takes on old television shows, I could set forth the theory that the vivacious and culturally eccentric personalities of the young minorities helped save the white people from living boring and mediocre lives in a loveless vacuum! That was the premise of Punky Brewster and that was practically the same show minus the eternally childlike black children from the other shows.

Speaking of terrible comic book tropes that never die (which is what makes them tropes! Geez! Get a dictionary, fatty! (HEY!)), Derek seems to be a boy genius who was about to get an internship with some science firm that had the kind of name that screams "Subsidiary of LexCorp!" His boss was going to be Ms. Dominus so she was probably mutated in the events of Metal as well and will become his nemesis. I probably won't ever know if I was right about this guess because I will not be buying Issue #2. I made that promise to myself when I bought this issue. I was all, "Hey, fatty. You're only getting this one for the schadenfreude. Don't even think about buying a second issue of this crap." I agreed with myself and wiped the tears from my eyes before buying the book. Why was I always so mean to myself?

The issue ends with Sideways announcing himself to the world via YouTube. But as he's doing it, some cosmic entity appears and tells him to stop because he's endangering all time and space. But Sideways is a teenager so he's all, "Who the fuck are you? YOU AREN'T MY FATHER! I mean, I don't think you are. Are you?!"

Sideways #1 Rating: This comic book might fool some people into thinking it's interesting and cool. But actually it's just another book about a teenaged superhero who wants to do whatever the fuck they please. Ostensibly, they usually want to help society. Invariably, they wind up just fighting people who come out of the woodwork to fight them specifically. And this comic book doesn't disappoint in Sideways' first encounter! I won't be getting issue #2 but I hope the person encountering Sideways is all, "Dude. We've seen this before an almost infinite amount of times. The thing you're doing? It breaks universes. You have to stop." And then Sideways will be all, "Stop?! No way! I'm the perky young upstart rebelling against anybody telling me that their are limits to the things I want to do! Fuck you!" Then the alien guy will be all, "I tried to warn you!" And then Sideways will be all "RIFT RIFT RIFT RIFT RIFT RIFT DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!" and the series will end.


Action Comics #997
By Jurgens, Booth, Rapmund, and Dalhouse

Superman with the rare male Boob/Butt Showcase.

I won't burden anybody who isn't reading this with any more of Brett Booth's terrible art or much of Dan Jurgens' terrible writing. Most of this is based on the premise that General Zod didn't get to raise his son because Zod's son was kept in the Phantom Zone. But since time doesn't pass in the Phantom Zone, how could that be? How did Zod's son grow up in the Phantom Zone? Have I been misunderstanding how the Phantom Zone works all this time or does Jurgens just think all comic book readers are morons? Sure, I think that as well! But I also know that they're full of the most useless facts, just ready to ambush Populars with a well-timed "Actually!"

Action Comics #997 Rating: This continues to be a terrible time travel story written by a writer who hasn't had a good idea since 1986 and drawn by an artist who thinks thighs should be, proportionally, thirty times bigger than every other body part. When DC Comics looks back at their history in the far future (and probably the really near future as well), they'll wonder why they chose such a terrible lead-in to their historic Issue #1000. Maybe they realized they already fucked it all up by renumbering Action Comics for The New 52 and just stopped caring.

DC Comics: "Technically this isn't really Issue #1000. Because of The New 52, Savage Dragon has more numerical continuity than all the DC books combined. We fucking suck."
DC Comics Fans: "More Harley Quinn please!"


Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!
I still have a lot of comic books I want to write about but I'm approaching 5000 words and that's probably 4500 more than most of you are willing to read each week. Which means you aren't reading these words so why am I writing them? Unless you skipped all the comic book crap because you couldn't wait to hear my expert thoughts on songs that randomly came up on my iTunes.

Public Enemy Service Announcement #2 by Public Enemy
You're probably thinking, "Didn't you already review this in the last E!TACT newsletter?" Unless you weren't thinking that and you're now thinking, "Was that in the last newsletter? I didn't make it past the first five hundred words." Some of you who aren't reading this are probably not thinking but should be thinking, "I should check my spam folder for the last fourteen issues of E!TACT!"

To answer the first imaginary person's question, this is a different Public Enemy service announcement. Based on both of them coming up in two subsequent Grunion Guy's Musical Corners, you might conclude that I only have four albums on my iTunes. Well, I don't! I'm sure I have at least seven.

This announcement starts off boring with Chuck D not letting Flava Flav get a "BOOOOIIIIEEEEE!" in edgewise. But as soon as Chuck D shuts his yap about Black history being something we should celebrate daily, Flava Flav swoops in to rescue the announcement by saying, "Don't be a vulture! Learn your culture!"

Grade: B+


Angel with the Scabbed Wings by Marilyn Manson
This song is off Antichrist Superstar which is an album name that virtually ensured that I would purchase it, even if I hadn't already been told by Howard Stern that I had to like it. The entire album sounds like if a belt sander learned to play guitar while your menopausal aunt screeches about how her husband ruined her life by being a slovenly bore. Luckily, I like the way those things sound together.

This particular song seems to be about an angel with a nasty STD fucking the childbirth potential out of a bunch of virgins. I guess it's one of Manson's autobiographical songs?

iTunes categorizes this song as "alternative" because it doesn't have an "angry at the entire stupid world" genre.

Grade: B


Boy Scoutz in the Hood (Medley) by The Simpsons
The Simpsons aren't really a band which is fine because this isn't really a song. It's mainly a long clip from an episode of the cartoon. There is a bit of a "New York, New York" parody in the middle of the clip but it's not enough to keep from skipping this when it shuffles to the top. I think it made it onto the Songs in the Key of Springfield album because whoever came up Homer's line about weaselling out of things being the thing that separates humans from animals (except the weasel) produced the album. It's not as bad as the clip where Homer reads the ingredients in a jar of peanuts but it's pretty close.

Grade: D+


TV Sucks ("A Fish Called Selma" episode) by The Simpsons
Jesus Christ, iTunes. Every time I do one of these Music Corners, you're going to force me to spend one entire review bitching about your terrible random number generator, aren't you? I get that there is no perfect system for generating random numbers via computer programming. But you could at least spend a little money on product development so that it doesn't pull this shit! Especially since now I have to remember that there is a whole other "song" on this dumb album that's as bad as Homer reading peanut ingredients! At least the Boy Scoutz medley had a little music in it!

Grade: F


The Anarchist by Rush
Hmm. How am I supposed to grade a song that I've never listened to the entire way through? Am I going to have to do that now? I suppose I knew I would give Clockwork Angels an undeserved chance at some point. The main reason I own this album was that Rush put the digital version on sale for ninety-nine cents. I thought, "Well, how can you go wrong at that price?!"

What I learned immediately after was that maybe I should stop asking rhetorical questions that quickly have a long list of answers. The long list of answers for the question "How can you go wrong at that price?" is just a listing of the songs on this album.

The song is seven minutes of prog rock prog rockiness. It has a bunch of changes that actual music reviewers would probably understand and possibly praise. But I just listened to the song and thought five times, "Oh, is this a new song? Oh wait. No. Still The Anarchist."

The album comes with a booklet that apparently adds a short story element to the album. Maybe the reason I've never given this album a chance is that I've never read the story excerpts or listened to the album in the correct order (or at all).

I think maybe this album was just meant for die-hard Rush fans.

Grade: C-


I don't have any space for letters this month! I mean, I do since this is just a virtual newsletter. But I already went way too long and now my record word count of nearly six thousand words is going to set a new bar for my inability to not shut up.

Grunion Guy logging off! Is that a good sign off? What about "Goodbye, jerkos!"? Ooh! I like that better.

Goodbye, jerkos!